One of the first areas we explored in the interviews was how each community or organization defined its own issues — how it named the problems at hand, what sorts of solutions it proposed in response to these problems, and how it framed these problems and solutions conceptually. Though different communities identified different underlying causes behind the problems their organizations tackle, there were some major consistencies, including:
Solutions were as varied as the problems for which communities identified root causes. Some of these solutions were very specific to the particular issue the community was facing (e.g., placing a physical barrier between residential development and agricultural fields or moving farmland away from town). Broader, more systemic solutions that were proposed largely revolved around increasing community participation in environmental decision making, or even instituting a complete paradigm shift in government, policy, and research. As one activist put it, “every decision we make today is gonna affect my grandchildren’s grandchildren. That’s the way they need to start lookin at these things. Instead of just, “how much is it gonna fill my pocket with change today?”
In addition to asking interviewees to talk straightfowardly about the issues and problems they worked on and the solutions they proposed for them, we were also interested in how activists framed and constructed these issues, problems, and solutions — more specifically, how they engaged with the idea of environmental justice and whether they felt EJ to be a conceptual framework that usefully described their work. Responses ran the gamut and often emerged from very complex, nuanced debates. To summarize:
Most interviewees identified with “environmental justice” as a frame for their work implicitly or indirectly, though not explicitly, feeling it that fit into environmental justice but they didn’t necessarily call it that. Those who did explicitly use environmental justice as a conceptual frame felt that there were better, more inclusive concepts for talking about the work they did (health/human rights) or that environmental justice did not go far enough (preferring environmental racism or environmental injustice). Others expressed discomfort with environmental justice as a concept because they felt it was an empty phrase or buzzword, or that its concept of “justice” was not broad or inclusive enough (of non-human beings, of non-poor/non-minority groups who nonetheless lack political representation). Still others, as in the case of food issues, felt that their work was clearly environmental justice and should be included as such, but that the dominant way of defining environmental justice excluded them.